PC TESTING AND PERFORMANCE
01
CPU-Z
Something everyone who’s even tangentially interested in their PC’s internals should have, CPU-Z pulls in the tiny details about your CPU, chipset, memory, and mainboard that Windows doesn’t feel like sharing with you, and puts them all in one handy place. It can make a precise reading of your current clock speed for both CPU and RAM, too—great for overclockers. www.cpuid.com
02
GPU-Z
Despite the name, appearance, and incredibly similar functionality, GPU-Z has nothing to do with CPU-Z—but it does have permission from the CPU-Z author to use its title, which is nice. It’s a GPU monitor, which can offer insights into both what you’re running and just how well it’s running, with access to a whole bunch of your graphics module’s on-board sensors. http://techpowerup.com/gpuz/
03HWiNFO64
Where CPU-Z and GPU-Z are specialized snipers, HWiNFO64 is the buckshot-loaded blunderbuss of hardware monitoring. If there’s a statistic out there you want to discover, it’ll find it—and it’s fantastic for overall system monitoring, too, with customizable graphs enabling you to track just about any metric or sensor output. http://hwinfo.com
04
Rainmeter
An odd choice for the system testing section? Perhaps. But Rainmeter sneaks in because, in the course of making your desktop look incredible, you can install a plugin like CoreTemp to hook your pretty desktop graphics into the heat of your CPU, or use a skin such as sysDash to display a host of customizable stats about your system. http://rainmeter.net
05CrystalDiskInfo
There are, for some unknown reason, three versions of this disk status monitor, but the only reason to grab the Shizuku or Kurei Kei editions are if you’re desperate to have a cute manga girl next to your impossibly detailed drive statistics. See also CrystalDiskMark, which will thoroughly kick your SSD in the teeth and see what it has to say about it.
http://crystalmark.info
06FurMark
A GPU benchmark that earns its place here by virtue of its stress testing and burn-in capabilities. It will absolutely hammer your GPU with its OpenGL routine, so much so that the gallery on the official website proudly includes images of hardware that went bang when it couldn’t keep up. There’s also an Asus ROG edition available, which tests Vulkan, too.
http://geeks3d.com/furmark
07
Prime95
FurMark burns in your GPU, but Prime95 is a real CPU cooker. It hunts through a bunch of possibilities to attempt to find new Mersenne prime numbers— something it’s managed 16 times since 1996. It’s a computationally intensive task like no other, and its torture test mode can help you diagnose issues with your processor, chipset, cache, and much more. http://mersenne.org
08Cinebench
Cinebench’s visual benchmarking results make it a great tool for testing or racing one machine against another—but it’s the built-in leaderboards that’ll really let you know when something’s up. If you’re lagging behind a Core 2 Duo, either they’ve got some serious overclocking abilities, or there’s a bottleneck on your end. http://maxon.net
09MemTest86
A very old-school tool with an old-school approach, dragged into the 21st century by its USB boot capabilities and support for just about every memory type you could throw at it. Whether you’re burning in your RAM or searching it for
errors, there’s something in its test suite for you—and it doesn’t even require an installed OS. http://memtest86.com
10
OCCT
Comprising a massive suite of tests, from a FurMark-esque GPU smasher to a GPU-centric memory test to a version of the LinPack benchmark used to rank supercomputers, OCCT could be the only testing app you need. Its best feature might be its PSU test, which runs CPU and GPU benchmarks simultaneously to help you determine whether there’s a lack of power anywhere in your system.
http://ocbase.com
IMPROVE YOUR CODING
11 UNREAL ENGINE
There’s a host of game engines out there for free (Unity and Amazon’s Lumberyard primary among the rivals) but Unreal Engine tops our list this time. OK, it’s not technically free—you have to pay a royalty if you’re using it commercially—but being able to freely get your hands on the same engine used in AAA titles is great. http://unrealengine.com 12 TRENCHBROOM 2
This editor, which turns level editing for the likes of Quake,
Hexen 2, and, er, Daikatana into a snap-together breeze, might be of niche appeal, but we love it. Besides, if you build your game to accept BSP files and use its “generic” template, there’s no reason you can’t use it— it’s the official editor for old-school modern shooter Dusk, after all.
http://kristianduske.com/trenchbroom 13 VISUAL STUDIO COMMUNITY Whatever you’re coding, you need a good IDE. Visual Studio Community, which is free for up to five users in an organization, is a very good IDE indeed. It’s modular, so you only install support for those languages you’re working with, it’s cloud-connected for collaboration, and (as you might expect) it’s fully integrated with Git, too.
http://visualstudio.microsoft.com 14 PYTHON
If you’re at the beginning of your code journey, Python is the language to start with. It’s simple, friendly with its syntax, and capable of some solid results, with a wide range of libraries available to help you on your way. Download one of the Windows packages—being aware that Python 2 is just as well supported as Python 3—and you get an IDE, too. http://python.org 15 ATOM
A text editor geared toward coders, Atom (made by the GitHub team) is the lightweight alternative to a full IDE, for when you just want to tinker and tweak. Naturally, it has Git integration, it’s highly customizable, and if you only want to use this to type up text documents, we promise we won’t tell anyone your dirty secret. http://atom.io
DESKTOP EXTRAS
16
Greenshot
Windows’ screenshot abilities are getting better as time goes on (whatever you might think about Snip & Sketch) but there’s nothing more convenient than Greenshot. If you’re forever having to crop those dual-monitor screenshots down to size, or you’re sick of launching yet another tool to get the job done, Greenshot’s quick and easy system integration is a boon.
http://getgreenshot.org
17
EaseUS Todo Backup Free
Some might be suspicious about the Chinese origin of EaseUS Todo Backup, but there’s no better desktop backup tool out there, at least at this level of usability and simplicity. Regular backups, complete drive clones, scheduled copies, partition shenanigans, whatever you need—it’s all a few clicks away, and restoring is just as straightforward. http://easeus.com
18
Fences 1.01
Later versions of Stardock’s Fences have moved to a paid-for model, yet the lighter-in-features but nonetheless great version 1.01 remains free. It enables you to group together your desktop icons into fenced-off areas that stop them wandering around and interfering with others—you can group your games, your work apps, and so forth, for a truly tidy desktop. http://stardock.com
19
Total Commander
File Explorer is what we’re used to, but it’s a pretty awful way to manage the contents of your hard drive. Once you’ve switched to a hardcore tool like Total Commander, you might never go back. Its dual-pane system harkens back to the early days of file management (indeed, it’s a modern clone of the Norton Commander formula) for maximum efficiency.
http://ghisler.com
20
WinDirStat
Let’s continue sniffing at things File Explorer doesn’t do well—it’s really difficult to find those files on your drive that are hogging space. Particularly useful (obviously) on those machines with limited disks, WinDirStat gives you a visual look at all your files, so you can immediately pinpoint the big boys and excise them then and there. http://windirstat.net
21
TidyTabs
Microsoft’s long-mooted Sets feature, which groups your windows into tabbed collections, appears to have entered the testing trashcan. No problem: The execution might be a little clunky, but